Candida Auris Infection: Symptoms and Prevention

What is Candida Auris?

Candida auris or C. auris is harmful fungal infection. People call it as yeast infections. This fungal causes serious infection that can inhibit the healing process of sick people. First time discovered in 2009 in a patient in Japan. Candida infection causes dangerous infections that can be life-threatening. It gets into the bloodstream and can be difficult for medical facilities to get rid of once it takes hold.

Candida infection causes dangerous infections that can be life-threatening. It gets into the bloodstream and can be difficult for medical facilities to get rid of once it takes hold.

Within this decade, Candida auris has emerged around the world, mostly in hospitals and nursing homes. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there have been 587 C. auris cases reported in the United States.

Why is Candida Auris dangerous?

According to CDC, Candida auris is dangerous fungus that can be a serious threat for global health. There some reasons why candida auris is dangerous:

It is often resistant to multiple-antifungal drugs commonly used to treat Candida infections.

It is hard to identify with standard laboratory methods, and it can be misidentified in labs without specific technology. Misidentification could lead to inappropriate handling procedure.

It has caused outbreaks in healthcare settings. Hence, it is important to quickly identify C. auris in a hospitalized patient so that healthcare facilities can take special precautions to stop its spread.

Who is at risk?

People with weak immunity system are the most vulnerable. Such as cancer patients, those in ICUs, and elderly people in nursing homes, and also people who are already sick; in at least one case, newborns were infected at a neonatal unit.

What are the symptoms of Candida Auris?

In order to see the symptoms of C. auris is a little bit tricky since this C. auris is still rare in the United States. According to CDC, people who get invasive Candida infections are often already sick from other medical conditions. So it would be difficult to know if he or she has a C. auris infection.

The most common symptoms of C. auris infection are fever, aches, fatigue and chills that don’t improve after antibiotic treatment for a suspected bacterial infection. Only a laboratory test can diagnose C. auris infection. Talk to your healthcare provider if you believe you have a fungal or healthcare-associated infection.

How to prevent Candida Auris?

Commonly, healthy people don’t need to worry about Candida auris as long as they don’t interact with infected patient. But if you or a loved one are hospitalized for a long time, it’s something that you need to be aware of. Therefore CDC is asking everyone to help:

Family members and other close contacts of patients with C. auris

Clean your hands with hand sanitizer or soap and water before and after touching a patient with C. auris or equipment in his or her room.

Remind healthcare personnel to clean their hands.

Laboratory staff, healthcare personnel, and public health officials

Know when to suspect C. auris and how to properly identify it.

Report cases quickly to public health departments.

For healthcare personnel, clean hands correctly and use precautions like wearing gowns and gloves to prevent spread.

Clean patient rooms thoroughly with a disinfectant that works against C. auris.